March 2018

Following last year’s concert celebrating International Women’s Day, the Music Faculty is proud to present this year’s celebration curated by the Director of Performance and Artist in Residence, cellist Natalie Clein.

All five of Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas are performed throughout our September weekend, giving a glimpse into every era of his life. His two-movement fourth sonata, among the first works of his “late” period, is preceded by music from the early careers of Berg and Webern, whose motivic origins can be traced back to the master. Beethoven’s influence is more apparent still in Brahms’ majestic and assured Second Piano Quartet.

Transport yourself to Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night” with this lunchtime concert, featuring a young composer exploring a late romantic sound world. His early masterpiece Verklärte Nacht, a sublime sextet penned before his departure into serialism, broke new ground by fusing the distinct motivic and harmonic languages of Wagner and Brahms.

Schoenberg is preceded by the first of Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas with moments of pianistic virtuosity and joyful high-register cello scoring.

Join us for this relaxed afternoon rehearsal, where accomplished musicians prepare for their evening performance of Schubert’s beloved late work, his String Quintet in C major.

The piece is sometimes called the “Cello Quintet” because it is scored for a standard string quartet plus an extra cello instead of the extra viola. It’s a Plush tradition for this piece to close out the festival: hear our musicians fine-tuning it in forensic fashion!

The curtain comes down on this season’s concert series with a packed programme that juxtaposes Boulez with Webern before placing Beethoven alongside Schubert. A typically stunning group of Plush Ensemble musicians open with a joyful Haydn quartet and close in the Plush tradition of performing Schubert’s finest chamber accomplishment, his String Quartet in C major.